Couture, coffee and customers

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This article was published 17/10/2021 (1166 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Crisp vintage jeans, deadstock Winnipeg Jets and Manitoba Moose crewnecks, a pristine, aged Winnipeg Jazz Festival T-shirt, Nike Air Max shoes, and a drip coffee bar: it’s not what a customer would typically expect to encounter beside the jewelry section on the main floor of the Polo Park Hudson’s Bay store.

But it’s there, as part of Surplus Market’s latest collaboration with the country’s oldest brand, a store-within-a-store concept that opened Wednesday in a spot where until recently Tokyo Olympics gear was sold. In its place, goods from 11 vendors are up for sale, surrounding a display case that’s been repurposed as a café by local brand Never Better Coffee.

Not only is it the only vintage shop in the CF Polo Park shopping centre, but the only independent coffee station.

Prior to the pandemic, the Surplus Market, a project of local firm Grape Labs, ran successful pop-up markets at the downtown Bay, with lines snaking around the building and dozens of vendors setting up shop for the day in the iconic store. It was the kind of event where hundreds of people would pour in and stand shoulder to shoulder, connecting with fellow vintage and sneaker enthusiasts while jousting for position near rare or unique pieces.

A lot has changed since then: the downtown Bay has closed down, and the pandemic has accelerated a shift to digital shopping while making some customers wary of returning to shop in person. That’s left pop-up entrepreneurs having to reassess their approach and retailers searching for new ways to bring back the usual crowd, and then some.

“I wouldn’t normally be at the Bay at 10 a.m. on a Wednesday,” said 21-year-old Daniel Schoofs, who was perusing the rack of vintage sports shirts in an old Elton John tee and a Boston Red Sox cap. “No way.”

Nearby, the team behind the market — Grape Labs founders Anthony and Andrew Sannie, Kyle Goldstine and special projects manager Joanna Velasquez, and Never Better’s Jordan Cayer — were still getting set up as more shoppers walked in. Each visitor heard about the market on social media, and like Schoofs, wouldn’t exactly fit the Bay’s expected Wednesday morning clientele.

Velasquez, who graduated from Toronto’s George Brown College’s fashion management program and has years of retail experience, said endeavours like the Surplus Market at the Bay represent a shift for retailers and a way to tap into a growing portion of customers who are conscious of the environmental impacts of fast fashion.

“We think it’s a new way forward for retailers,” says Velasquez.

Companies like Hudson’s Bay, which historically have had permanent fixtures for national or international brands, are also looking to take advantage of a growing desire on consumers’ part to shop from local and independent vendors.

At the Surplus Market, only local and Canadian vendors have their products available. Those vendors include those selling vintage and consigned clothing (Keepers Winnipeg, Shapes and Feelings, Lost N Found, Nuage Vintage, Vintage Garment Shop, Mother of Pearl Bazaar, and Vintage Goods MB), sneakers and streetwear (Bragging Rights, SLF) and jewelry (Au Naturale and Simpleries).

Also up for sale are fragrances from the newly launched local brand Piper & Perro, and soon the market will stock products made from palo — an incense-like wood — sourced by a Montreal company from Ecuador, and hand-poured candles made in Vancouver.

In 2019, according to Deloitte Canada, the country’s top malls experienced a 22 per cent decrease in foot traffic, a precipitous drop made worse by the pandemic. The firm’s 2020 report into the future of shopping malls found that nearly four in five consumers expected online shopping to increase in popularity, and that nearly two-thirds expected enclosed-mall shopping to wane in appeal.

With that future in mind, large legacy retailers and small-scale ones needed to be nimble and ready to try new things, rather than holding out hope that pre-pandemic consumers would return in full swing.

In its report, Deloitte also presented five focuses for retailers, including four that the Surplus Market checks off: rethinking the store’s role, making way for food or drinks, embracing technology and becoming a destination through pop-ups, exhibitions, or more interactive experiences.

Overall, the shop-within-a-shop represents a stark departure from the typical mall-going experience, says Goldstine, one of the market’s co-founders, giving customers a boutique experience marked by thoughtful curation. What you see is what you get, and what you see are frequently one-of-one items: there aren’t other versions in the back.

That “rarity” helped drive the success of the market’s past pop-ups, he adds. “Everyone wants to be able to buy things that nobody else has,” he says. The bet is that with the permanent fixtures, both the Bay and the vendors will benefit from a similar level of enthusiasm from consumers.

About 25 minutes after the mall’s doors open, the first item is sold: a souvenir T-shirt from the last Winnipeg Jets game in 1996 before the original franchise became the expansion Phoenix Coyotes.

A 25-year-old man bought the garment — which read “End of an Era” — for $40, a bargain in his eyes on the eve of the 2021 NHL season. Anthony Sannie rang up the sale, folded the shirt and handed it back in a Surplus Market branded bag.

“I’m rarely ever here, unless it’s Christmas,” the buyer said, gesturing around the store and the mall. “But they got me here today.”

ben.waldman@freepress.mb.ca